How to Generate Ideas for Group Discussions

Essentially to succeed in a group discussion round of your hiring process, is actually generations of ideas and content, or simply put, something to speak and write about. While it appears easy enough, however there are certain key elements you have to keep in mind to stand out from the rest of the candidates.

The biggest challenge in group discussions is the paucity of time. This necessitates that you think on your feet and generate as many ideas as possible, remaining close to the topic. This article sees to provide you with time-tested frameworks and techniques to help you think in a structured manner and help you give your best performance!

Brainstorming or free-writing –

In this first technique, what you really need to do is to write non-stop for some time (pre-determined) without paying any attention to grammar, spellings, and vocabulary or even the how the ideas actually seems. While free writing, try to stay as close to the topic as possible. Further, use phrases and keywords, rather than writing full sentences to create a list of all your ideas. When you are finished, look over the list carefully. Cross out useless information and logically organize what is left.

Concept mapping –

This is more of a graphic technique that will help you visualize the issue and its relationship with diverse areas. Hence, you might want to draw a circle or a square and add spokes or lines coming out from that shape. While you are to keep the main idea in the center of the shape, you can keep the sub-topics and other related ideas around the shape through the lines, following the development of your idea.

The 5Ws technique –

Asking “who, what, where, when, and why” is a formula used by professionals in many fields, like the journalists, detectives, and researchers for getting a complete story. This technique is particularly useful for choosing a topic, and for focusing on a topic.

(a) Who: Who is the topic about? Who does this topic revolve around? If there are many more people involved, who all are they? At what different levels are they involved?
(b) What: What is the central issue and what is its importance?
(c) Where: Where does all this occur?
(d) When: When does all this occur? When is the beginning and when is the action supposed to be taken?
(e) Why: Why are we talking about this anyway? Why should everyone talk or know about this?
Use this technique for any topic, even topics that you have little or no idea about!